I thought Usenet services generally avoided this kind of thing? Looks like they shut down voluntarily after getting threats from some companies like Disney and stuff.

Quote:

2012 has been a troublesome year for Usenet services.

Copyright holders have rapidly increased the number of DMCA takedown notices they send to indexing and hosting services. In addition, payment providers such as Paypal are banning Usenet related sites over piracy concerns.

As a result of these and other changes Newzbin2 killed their service at the end of last month, and today the very popular Usenet indexer NZBMatrix follows in its footsteps.

NZBMatrix shut down a few hours ago and left a statement on the site explaining why. The Usenet indexer says it had to make this decision due to a “very large takedown request” from major Hollywood movie studios”

While a takedown notice doesn’t have to mean the end of a website, NZBMatrix appears to have trouble automating the process. And with the increasing rate at which the notices come in, NZBMatrix can’t keep up anymore.

“As everyone is aware we are DMCA/Takedown notice compliant, and always have been. Once this notice is completed we are left with an impossible task of policing our indexing bots. Even then it won’t stop there, there will be follow-up notices etc,” they explain.

I don't think it necessarily means anything to torrent users. Usenet was a service that people went to as an alternative to torrents that was viewed as faster and more safe to download content. Now these sites are starting to get shut down as well due to pressure from big media companies.